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Portland Street Response continues to be a political football.
The newish city program had scheduled a presentation from PSR leadership and staff Friday Oct. 4 from 1 to 3 pm “for Portland City Council candidates to get an inside look into PSR’s daily operations.”
But this afternoon, Mike Myers, the deputy city administrator who oversees the newly formed Public Safety Service Area (which includes police, fire, emergency communications and management) issued a statement cancelling the briefing less than 24 hours before it was to be held.
“To ensure that the City of Portland remains politically neutral, we are cancelling the Portland Street Response candidate education session scheduled for Oct. 4, 2024. We are committed to ensuring that the City remains politically neutral, while also ensuring that incoming elected officials have access to information,” Myers said.
“This summer, the Auditor’s Office and Multnomah County co-hosted candidate education sessions that covered Portland’s new election system,” Myers added. “Many of you attended those candidate sessions. However, we are taking great lengths to ensure that city employees do not get involved in the dynamics among candidates prior to the election—including engagement on specific policy areas.”
PSR has been a hot-button issue since it began operations in early 2021. The organization launched with the strong support of the former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and designed to provide a more effective response to people experiencing a mental health crisis.
But PSR found favor with neither the police nor fire unions, whose members challenged the premise of Portland Street Response from the beginning. The organization also received a chilly reception from Portland Fire & Rescue, where it was originally housed, and attracted the ire of Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, who defeated Hardesty in 2022 and oversaw the bureau until earlier this year, when the Public Safety Service Area was formed.
A nearly identical informational session for City Council candidates about another fire bureau program—called CHAT, which stands for Community Health Assess and Treat—took place on Wednesday morning. According to an invitation sent to candidates by Tom Miller, a top administrator in Portland Fire & Rescue, the event was hosted by the fire bureau. According to several attendees, at least 20 candidates for office attended the CHAT event, including candidates for City Council and mayor.
It’s not clear if the cancellation of the PSR event was connected to the CHAT event the day before, but the fire bureau has historically been more supportive of CHAT—a program the bureau created—than PSR.